The latest terror attacks in London found the West “shocked” to realize that Islamist terrorists have established a worldwide support system. This, however, should not have surprised any student of terrorism. Israel, which since the first Hamas attack on April 13, 1994, has suffered hundreds of suicide bombings in which more than 1200 of its citizens and foreign nationals were murdered, and thousands maimed and wounded, has identified the terrorists’ international financial and tactical support links. Yet Israel received little sympathy and even less assistance from the international community in its efforts to stop these terrorists. Even now, as law enforcement agencies are busy tracking and exposing Islamist terrorist cells and world leaders are condemning terrorism, Israel is conspicuously absent from everybody’s list as a country victimized by terrorism.

This “oversight” is consistent with the fact that Israel is being pushed to surrender to Islamist terrorism and reward Palestinian Jihadists who are committed to the destruction of the Jewish state, and even to provide terrorists with the necessary gun-power to achieve their aim. Has anybody suggested providing more explosives to the al Qaeda cells in Britain? How can anyone distinguish between the victims that were murdered in cold blood aboard the London Tube and busses and the victims that were murdered on board busses in Tel Aviv or a pizzeria in Jerusalem?

Only the 9/11 attacks on America utilized different suicide mass-murder tactics than all the other Islamist attacks in Britain, Spain, Russia, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, Italy, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Argentina, Kenya, Tanzania, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. In each of these countries, the methods were similar, if not identical, to the suicidal bombings in Israel; only the scope was sometimes different.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Jacques Chirac’s demands that Israel supply ammunition to the PA, which has consistently refused to disarm and denounce violence against Israel, will simply add more fuel to the fire, and will lead directly to more death and destruction.

After the London attacks, the Western world leaders at the G8 meeting in Scotland, stated jointly that “We are united in our resolve to confront and defeat this terrorism that is not an attack on one nation, but on all nations and on civilized people everywhere.” At the very same time, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas joined Syria’s president Bashir Assad in Damascus to celebrate the London bombings along with other leaders of U.S.-designated terrorist organizations including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Not one world leader condemned that meeting.

The more time elapses since the first Hamas suicide bombing in Israel, which was excused away by Hamas and accepted by most of the international community as a reaction to Israeli oppression and occupation, the more suicide bombings became a threat in the West. Yet, instead of supporting and encouraging Israel in its fight against these Islamic terrorist organizations and conditioning future assistance and territorial independence upon the Palestinians’ fulfillment of ALL the agreements they have repeatedly violated, the U.S. and its European allies are pressuring Israel to provide these terror organizations with a new base of operations – the Gaza Strip – and to provide them with the weaponry that they can then use to attack Israel and the West.

The Islamists’ commitment to Jihad – the only commitment they have been known to fulfill – will continue as long as the Saudis continue to fund madrassahs where Jihad and martyrdom are praised and as long as Iran continues to fund, harbor and train Jihadists, Shiites and Sunnis alike through its Syrian/Hezbollah connection and their support of Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza as well as other Islamist groups in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

Their overall united objective is to destroy Israel and Democratic free societies, while using supposed oppression by Israel, America and its allies to justify their continuing violence. To solve the Israeli/Palestinian situation, a broader and stronger Middle East Policy must be adopted and executed by all free societies, one which takes out of play those nation states that continue to support and fund terrorism and radical Islam.

Giving Palestinian Islamist terrorists a territory in and from which they can operate freely would only contribute directly to the escalation of terrorist attacks, suicidal or otherwise, around the world. With this in mind, the U.S. should reconsider its pressure on Israel to appease terrorism.

Rachel Ehrenfeld, Director of American Center for Democracy (www.public-integrity.org), and author of Funding Evil; How terrorism is Financed – and How to Stop It. Paul E Vallely, Major General, US Army Ret and Senior Military Analyst Fox News Channel and Co-author of Endgame -Blueprint for Victory in War on Terror.

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